AAHOA’s partnership with Mews equips members with a unified property management system
By Cathleen Draper
Hotel owners have long relied on fragmented legacy systems, and the hospitality industry as a whole lags behind others in adopting modern technology. Disconnected and outdated technology forces hoteliers into a system of stagnation – eroding profit, weakening rate integrity, and limiting opportunities to grow ancillary income.
In an environment where every basis point of margin matters, relying on systems that simply record reservations, rather than actively protect revenue and control costs, is no longer sustainable.
That’s the driving factor behind AAHOA’s latest partnership with Mews, a cloud-based property management system. In late February, AAHOA announced Mews as the association’s Official PMS, expanding members’ access to a modern operating platform built for today’s hospitality environment.
“Our members are looking for technology that is reliable and practical, but also modern and built to grow with their businesses,” said AAHOA Chairman Kamalesh (KP) Patel. “By selecting Mews as the Official PMS of AAHOA, we’re expanding access to tools that help hotel owners simplify daily work, improve efficiency, and build sustainable, profitable businesses.”
The partnership reflects AAHOA’s ongoing mission to advocate for and empower hotel owners through education, innovation, and access to trusted industry solutions – giving them a leg up in building profitable businesses in an increasingly competitive marketplace.
“Hotel owners are navigating rising costs, workforce challenges, and rapidly evolving guest expectations,” said AAHOA President & CEO Laura Lee Blake. “Through this partnership with Mews, we’re helping our members stay competitive with technology that streamlines operations, strengthens performance, and positions their businesses for sustainable growth.”
Through the collaboration, AAHOA Members will gain exclusive pricing on Mews’ fully integrated PMS, including real-time reporting and financial visibility and open integrations with accounting and guest-facing systems. With stronger reporting and centralized data, owners can monitor occupancy, ADR, RevPAR, and total revenue performance in real time, helping safeguard rate integrity and identify opportunities to expand ancillary income. The platform is designed to reduce manual work, speed up staff onboarding, and give owners clearer control over revenue and profitability.
Optional add-ons, including revenue management tools for data-driven pricing and integrated housekeeping solutions, further streamline operations and support smarter decision-making.
“AAHOA Members are some of the most entrepreneurial and resilient operators in the industry,” said Richard Valtr, founder of Mews. “As the Official PMS of AAHOA, we’re giving them the tools to run smarter, more profitable businesses and deliver better guest experiences – without the burden of outdated systems. Hospitality deserves technology that works for hoteliers, not against them.”
Enhancing Efficiencies
Today’s hotel owners must navigate an increasingly challenging environment, resisting pressures that extend far beyond day-today operations.
Labor and operational costs continue to rise, while margins continue to shrink. Disconnected systems create silos, and a lack of automation increases the administrative burden on hotel owners, operators, and staff. Outdated technology limits visibility into performance. And at the same time, guests increasingly expect digital-first experiences.
With patchworked systems, friction abounds – impeding decision-making and hindering profitability and efficiency.
“When systems are fragmented, innovation slows. Costs rise. Opportunities to optimize pricing and performance are missed,” said Valtr.
In contrast, unified systems such as the Mews platform create streamlined solutions for hotel owners, staff, and guests.
Mews connects accounting, revenue management, payments, and guest-facing tools, simplifying workflows for both single properties and multi-property portfolios. Data flows automatically across departments, allowing hoteliers to shift to a strategic mindset with a focus on profitability.
That integrated and automated foundation helps hoteliers to cut costs. Duplicate data entry, manual reconciliation, and burdensome administrative processes eat away at time staff could spend focusing on guests and high-priority tasks. Inefficiencies drive labor costs up and slow operations down.
But with Mews, core operating functions are consolidated into one platform, reducing manual work, minimizing reconciliation, decreasing staff onboarding time, and allowing hotels to operate with leaner, more efficient teams.
“The Mews product removed a lot of manual work,” said AAHOA Member Ashish Panchal of Otter Hospitality, a Monterey, CA-based owner-operator group. “Once it’s set up, it just runs.”
Otter Hospitality implemented the Mews system to better manage its growing portfolio, which currently boasts 11 properties across California. The Otter team sought a technology solution that could reduce operational friction, give owners clear visibility, and scale across properties.
“The reason we switched is simple,” Panchal said. “Mews gives us flexibility, automation, and the freedom to build the tech stack that actually works for us.”
For Otter, manual billing and product add-ons, such as parking, were error-prone and required continuous oversight. When Otter switched to Mews, the group automated recurring charges based on the booking channel, rate plan, and stay conditions. Add-ons and fees are now automatically applied.
The effect for Otter was threefold: Front desk teams carried fewer manual tasks on their plate, billing errors and guest disputes decreased, and pricing and add-on handling became more consistent.
Profitability in the Driver’s Seat
Protecting margins in today’s operating environment requires precision and timeliness. Often, hotel owners rely on disconnected reporting and a siloed revenue management system, which leaves them to adjust pricing reactively. But a proactive, data-driven pricing strategy is possible with Mews.
Through integrated reporting and the optional add-on of Mews’ revenue management system, hotel owners and revenue teams can implement dynamic pricing, adjusting rates automatically based on demand.
Dynamic pricing helps owners to capture the highest possible rate and rapidly respond to shifts in the local market. Over time with Mews, hoteliers can monitor performance indicators, providing clarity on where profit is being generated, and where it may be leaking.
“The difference between reactive pricing and data-driven pricing can materially impact revenue per room and profit per property,” said Greg Naidoo, chief evangelist & development officer at Mews. “Integrated payments and unified financial reporting also ensure that revenue, cancellations, and operational costs are reflected accurately.”
Reporting is key for owners to protect their profitability. Mews offers unified reporting across reservations, payments, and operational metrics, granting hotel owners greater insight into occupancy, ADR, RevPar, and overall performance. Those with multi-hotel portfolios can compare performance across properties with ease.
“Instead of reviewing last month’s results, owners can make daily adjustments that protect profitability in a tougher operating environment,” Naidoo said.
Centralized financial oversight granted the Otter Hospitality team greater visibility across its growing portfolio. Before Mews, their group-level reporting was slow, fragmented, and dependent on manual reconciliation.
With centralized financial tracking across all properties, transactions now flow into structured ledgers, eliminating the Otter team’s reliance on spreadsheets and manual cleanup. Owners gained greater insights into performance in far less time.
“With Mews ledgers, we finally have clarity across the whole group instead of piecing things together,” Panchal said.
Built to Scale
The Mews PMS platform is designed for independent operators, multi-property portfolios, and family-run hotels.
For mom-and-pop operations, cloud deployment reduces infrastructure requirements, and intuitive workflows simplify adoption and help hoteliers quickly onboard. With automated processes, the administrative burden on owners and staff softens. Rather than depend on a myriad of vendors, owners can rely on a connected system with integrated capabilities and open integrations that streamline core hotel operations.
“Advanced tools – including pricing intelligence and unified reporting – are not limited to luxury or large-scale operators,” Naidoo said. “It allows independent and midscale owners to compete on stronger digital footing while maintaining control over their business.”
For growing portfolios, Mews provides centralized visibility across properties, standardized workflows, revenue management that scales, and portfolio-level financial reporting.
Before rolling out the Mews PMS across its portfolio, Otter Hospitality saw frequent errors, inconsistencies, and additional – and unnecessary – manual work as its portfolio of independently branded hotels grew.
With a single core system in place, Otter Hospitality standardized operations while retaining flexibility at the property level.
A repeatable rollout model allowed Otter to deploy a core PMS configuration while still factoring in property-level differences in rates, products, and operations. The phased onboarding approach enabled each property to roll out the technology faster and more efficiently than the last.
From Managing Systems to Managing Profitability
The partnership between Mews and AAHOA is purposeful. It’s meant to help AAHOA Members modernize their operations and therefore strengthen long-term financial performance.
AAHOA Members, especially those operating in the economy and midscale segments, face tough environments defined by rising costs, tighter margins, and shifting demand.
“This partnership is focused on helping owners protect profitability by replacing manual processes and disconnected systems with integrated, intelligent infrastructure,” Mews Founder Valtr said.
“It is not simply about upgrading software,” Valtr continued. “It is about building a stronger operational backbone that allows owners to run leaner, price smarter, and compete more effectively, regardless of property size.”
The Fully Connected Future
AAHOA’s latest partnership with Mews grants members exclusive pricing and structured onboarding support for the Mews property management system. Members will gain access to:
- An integrated property management system
- Real-time reporting and financial visibility
- Open integrations with accounting and guest-facing tools
- Optional add-ons of a revenue management solution and housekeeping tools
Image: Mews
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